


The Dark Chooses You

by CoffeeWithConsequences



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood and Violence, Bottom John Blake, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Violence, Drugs, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Masturbation, Non-Consensual, Non-Consensual Violence, Past Violence, Rape, References to Drugs, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Violence, Threats of Violence, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-08 20:12:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12872121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeWithConsequences/pseuds/CoffeeWithConsequences
Summary: As Gotham rebuilds after Bane's occupation, John Blake tries to come to terms with his own frightening sexuality AND learn how to be Gotham's newest vigilante protector. When he learns that Bane is both alive and still in Gotham, both of these tasks take on a whole new meaning. Will John be strong enough to accept who he really is and what he really wants?This story is in progress. I expect a total of 7-8 chapters, with a new one posted each week.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Though this first chapter is fairly mild, I expect this story to get quite violent and to include non-consensual or dubious-consent sexual content. Please be forewarned before you begin reading that those are likely future possibilities.

John Blake was not a virgin. In fact, he’d had plenty of sexual experience. He’d started with girls a little on the young side, back when he was in the boys’ home. It was just one of those things that “troubled youth” like him were supposed to do, so he did it. He could always get it up and get off, but it never excited him all that much. It seemed like a vaguely amusing pastime, but nothing more. Eventually, he decided he must be gay. He didn’t love the idea--he knew it could be dangerous to him--but he’d never been one to pretend to be something he wasn’t. So, he’d tried it out with men. He’d never fucked boys, even though he’d still been one himself. It seemed safer, somehow, to go right to the young adult men (and occasionally not young adult men) who hung around the neighborhood. He’d learned how to suck their cocks, how to have his sucked, had taken them into his body a few times. It was more exciting than the stuff with the girls had been, but it still didn’t seem worth the various risks it entailed. He was left wondering if that was really all there was to it, and vaguely disapproving of people who made terrible choices and paid huge costs all for the sake of sex.

After he became a cop, Blake dutifully dated a few girls, took them to bed, and repeated his early teenage experiences with a bit more finesse. When his skin seemed to particularly itch, he went out and let himself be picked up by a man, somewhere seedy and dark. It only temporarily took the edge off. Maybe, Blake thought, he just wasn’t a very sexual person.

That didn’t seem right either. For one thing, he jerked off. In fact, he jerked off a lot--sometimes more than once a day. He tipped his head against the broken, dirty tile wall of his tiny shower and thrust his cock into his fist. He tried to think about the girls, or about the men, but his fantasies weren’t easy to tame. Instead, he thought about dark, shadowed figures. He thought about running hard, panting heavily, and being taken to the ground by someone much larger. He thought about having his hands tied behind him, about being forced to his knees. He thought about being entered by an anonymous man, his cock thick and rough. He thought about screaming.

After one of these sessions in the shower, Blake inevitably felt ashamed. He’d done his training on sexual assault in the academy, though thankfully hadn’t worked the beat himself. He knew what he was fantasizing about wasn’t normal, wasn’t right. He had more or less come to terms with preferring men--though he’d been raised Catholic in the boy’s home, he saw no reason to be a stickler about it. This, though, was something more. It was something dirty and dark and deviant and wrong. And he was a cop, or at least had been. He should know better.

So, he tried to put it out of his mind. He started watching porn--first with girls, then with both girls and guys, then with guys. He stayed away from anything that might have violence, and instead jerked off while watching every possible configuration of cheerleaders and horny college girls, of firemen and cops and cowboys. He could come, but it felt hollow. It was nothing like the images his imagination provided. 

All in all, John Blake was massively sexually unsatisfied. But he had many other things on which to focus as Gotham got shakily back to its feet after Bane’s reign of terror. He wasn’t a cop anymore, and he wasn’t yet sure what the hell he was supposed to do with the cave of toys and weapons and gadgets he couldn’t identify he’d been willed by Bruce Wayne, but he still had things to do. He spent a lot of time with the boys, teaching them things, and helping them get past their fears. The entire city had PTSD, but theirs was among the worst, and they needed all the attention they could get. He met occasionally with Commissioner Gordon, not as a detective, but as a friend, giving insight and ideas where he could, and listening hard for the veiled suggestions the man made about the need for a new version of Batman. He volunteered on clean up crews and used his hands to help rebuild his broken city.

For a long time, Blake had been tired. He’d already been tired before Bane and Talia’s arrival, been tired maybe since he was a child, fighting for scraps at the table of a society that had no use for him. He knew that he didn’t yet have the energy to become whatever it was that Bruce had expected of him. He would, but first he needed to rest, to regroup, to heal. It made sense--Gordon said so, his shrink said so, the priest said so. But resting and healing weren’t an answer for Blake’s restlessness, for the anger that had only grown when he stood on a bridge and realized the likelihood that a bus full of children were about to be killed. He worked out, sometimes more than once a day, spending hours lifting weights, running until his lungs gave out, punching the bag. He tried to work all that rage into something he could use, something that didn’t still feel like it was gnawing at him from the bottom of his stomach, rarely quiet and never actually absent. There didn’t seem to be any end to that rage, and even when Blake fell into his lumpy bed so exhausted he could barely think, it was with him, often keeping him awake, and making his sleep restless when it didn’t. Gotham might have been healing, but he wasn’t.

Taking deep, philosophical inventory of his own emotional state wasn’t likely to ever be Blake’s strongest area. There had been some half-assed emotional touchy-feely training in the academy, and he’d laughed it off just like the rest of the recruits. He’d had more therapists over the years that he cared to admit, and they’d often tried to get him “in touch with his feelings,” but none, including the current one, had been particularly successful. HIs feelings seemed to mainly be variations on angry anyway, so how in touch did he really need to be? Still, he was self-aware enough to know that the thing building inside him as he threw himself into Gotham’s rebuilding wasn’t sustainable. It was going to have to come out.

On a day that was a bit worse than the rest, Blake decided to give something new a try. He was feeling restless, no amount of running or weightlifting or helping rebuild buildings was helping. He had spent hours standing in the middle of the goddamn batcave, feeling completely useless and increasingly angry. So he went to a place he’d heard about. He’d been poking around online, looking for recommendations, and there were a number of these establishments in Gotham, but this one was the closest to his house, and apparently the easiest for a non-member to get into, so he decided to give it a try.

He wasn’t sure what he should call the place--online commented usually referred to it as a club, but it wasn’t like any club Blake had been to before. There was no music, no flashing light. There was a bar, but it was a small, subdued affair. The room was large, and he could see doorways to several smaller rooms. In one corner, a man casually flicked a riding crop against the skin of a dark-haired woman. The woman was tied to a wall, and she screamed harder than the light flicks seemed to necessitate. In another corner, a woman in black catsuit and mask held a man over her knee and spanked him with a wooden paddle. There were maybe two dozen people, all in twos or threes, most in some kind of costume. John walked around cautiously, hoping to blend into the woodwork, and looked for something that would ignite a spark in him. He felt foolish, and was ashamed for these people, who seemed to be putting on a play with only each other as audience.

John was already about to leave when he spotted the new man. He was dressed in a reasonable, though clearly not technically accurate, facsimile of Batman’s suit. He appeared to be some sort of celebrity here, stopping to talk to people as he walked around the room. There were too few people to avoid him, so John wasn’t surprised when Batman Suit addressed him. 

“You’re new.” The voice didn’t go with the suit. It was nothing like Bruce Wayne’s growl, and certainly didn't’ resemble the even lower register he used for Batman. The man wasn’t built like Batman, either--he was slightly taller than John, but not tall, and though not slim, he seemed to tend toward paunchy more than muscular.

“Just checking things out,” John said, hoping it would be the end of the encounter. “I’m actually about to leave.”

“Didn’t see anything you liked?” The man took an unnecessary step closer to John as he spoke. “I can’t imagine that.”

“Not really my scene after all,” John said lightly, taking a step around the Batman Suit and toward the door.

 

“Maybe you just aren’t looking at the right things,” the man said, his voice absurdly lowered, as if he were trying to tell John as secret. “A pretty thing like you, I bet you like to be dominated.” 

John’s eyes widened. Who the fuck did this dude think he was? “No, I don’t think so,” he said brusquely, and made another step toward the door.

Maybe John shouldn’t have been surprised when the man grabbed his arm, but he was. “Stay,” Batman Suit ordered. “And get down on your knees.”

John pulled his arm away. “Get your hands off me, you crazy fucker.” He glared at Batman Suit and felt the familiar surge of rage. “Do you have any idea how fucking stupid your Halloween costume looks?” For the last time, he turned toward the door.

The rest happened fast. Batman Suit grabbed John’s arm again, this time putting muscle into it, attempting to force John to his knees. John reacted immediately, spinning his body away and throwing a punch. It wasn’t even a particularly hard punch, but it connected squarely with Batman Suit’s jaw, and he stumbled back, eyes wide, grabbing at his face. “You’ll be punished for that insolence,” he said, stalking back toward John. “You’re not going to be able to sit for a week when I’m done with you.”

John laughed--he couldn’t help it. This whole idea had been ridiculous, and Batman Suit was just making it very clear how stupid it had been. “If you touch me again, I will break your arm,” John said. His voice was low and clear.

Batman Suit didn’t take the warning. He reached for John again, his fingers grasping, nails uneven and dirty. It was those fingernails, as much as anything, that made John recoil. He was fairly sure Bruce Wayne cleaned his goddamn hands. The grasping arms never made it to John’s shoulders--he grabbed one hand, before it could connect with him, and gave it a hard twist, pivoting his body like he’d been taught by so many fight instructors and neighborhood bullies. He heard it snap before the man screamed and hit the floor.

John didn’t wait to see the aftermath. As the rest of the half-dressed club members surrounded Batman Suit, he hit the street, running for blocks before he decided he was safe to stop. 

Back in his apartment, in the shower, John tried to scrub the desperation and shame of the club off his skin. Whatever it was he wanted, that wasn’t it. Nothing those people had been doing held any appeal. He’d been worried, a bit, that part of what he was getting off on was hurting people, but the ease at which he’d hurt Batman Suit did nothing for him, either. The run away from the club had been the only part of the evening that was even mildly entertaining, and that was only because he was able to convince himself that someone might be chasing him. He sighed, frustrated as ever. How the fuck was he supposed to become Gotham’s next protector if he couldn’t even figure out what was happening between his own legs most of the time? 

A few days later, John had one of his infrequent lunches with Commissioner Gordon. Gordon had called him with an invitation, which was unusual only because he typically didn’t leave his office for lunch during the week--there was simply too much to do in rebuilding Gotham. As they sat over BLTs in the cafe down the street from Gordon’s office, the older man looked tired and drawn. He always did, really, but the bags under his eyes were extreme today even for him.

“What’s going on?” John asked, trying for a casual voice. “You look worried.”

Gordon nodded. “I am worried.” He hesitated briefly, then went on. “I shouldn’t be telling you this--have no right to tell you this, actually--but I’m going to anyway. We have a big problem.”

John raised his eyebrows, waiting for Gordon to continue. He noticed that although his sandwich was nearly gone, Gordon’s was missing only one bite.

“Bane.” Gordon’s voice was stronger than his face. “He’s alive. And he’s still here in Gotham.”

John was silent for a long minute. He had no idea how to process the information Gordon had just given him. Though he knew, now, that the woman formerly known as Miranda Tate had been the real catalyst behind the occupation and Gotham’s near destruction, Bane was still the face of that damage in his mind, as in every other Gotham’s citizens’. Batman was dead because of Bane. Thousands of others were dead or missing because of Bane. Bane was, in the most real sense, the monster under the bed, the boogeyman in the closet. The assumption that he was gone, consumed in the fire that had ended up engulfing City Hall, had been one of the few clear mercies of the post-occupation disaster they’d been dealing with for months.

When he finally found his voice, John asked the expected questions. How did they know? Were they sure? Was there any way to know what else Bane was planning? Did he still have an army at his back? Gordon’s answers were mostly unsatisfactory. There wasn’t much information. 

“We need Batman,” Blake said softly. It felt childish, like wishing for Santa Claus. He knew better than most that no help could come from dead men.

Gordon nodded and looked tense. “He gave Gotham more than we ever had a right to ask. Someone else has to step up now.”

John stopped himself before his brow wrinkled. Did Gordon know about the cave? How could he? “There’s nobody else like that,” he finally said.

Gordon smiled his tired smile. “Bruce Wayne wasn’t like that to begin with, son. Heroes aren’t born, they’re created.”

Long after they had finished their lunch and gone their separate ways, Gordon’s words echoed in John’s mind. Could he really create a hero from himself? Was that what Bruce was expecting? What had Bruce seen in him that made that seem possible? Walking aimlessly around Gotham, as he so often did, John took stock of himself, unflinching. He was small--no matter how much he worked out, he was always going to be of only medium height and slim build--nothing like Bruce Wayne’s rangy strength, and nothing even approaching the mountain that was Bane. He was trained, as a cop, but had no real martial arts or fighting training beyond what one learns by necessity as a street kid. He was tenacious and willing to work. He was young and healthy and had no real attachments to family or friends. And he had the Batcave and its contents.

It wasn’t enough--wasn’t nearly enough. John couldn’t help but compare himself to Bruce. Gordon may have been right that Wayne hadn’t started out as a hero, but he’d certainly had more to work with. A bigger, stronger body; intense training; and fucking billions to make whatever gadget or gizmo might make his life easier. For neither the first time nor the last, John momentarily despised Bruce Wayne, who so optimistically and egotistically thought he could just choose a successor, and that successor should be John. 

No amount of anger directed at Bruce changed the truth of the situation, though. Bane was back, Gotham was threatened from the outside as well as from its own underbelly, again, and the Gotham PD, much as Gordon wished otherwise, was understaffed, undertrained, and still reeling from everything that happened with Bane last time. Gotham needed a hero, and it looked like John might be the best they were going to get.

John slept uneasily that night, all other problems far from his mind. He was angry with himself--he should have started real preparation to take over Batman’s mantle as soon as he found the cave, rather than spending months looking around in wonder, clueless as to where to begin. Now it was impossible to know how much time he had--how much time Gotham had--before Bane rained hell down upon them again. It might already be too late.  
____________________________________________________________________________

The suits didn’t fit. It turned out there was more than one, with some variation between them, but none of them were anything close to John’s size. Even if he’d been able to sew (and where, precisely, would he have picked that up?), they weren’t exactly cotton you could rip apart and alter. So, his first problem was finding something to wear. After rummaging around in one of the many boxes and trunks and cabinets secreted away in the passages off the cave, he found a bunch of half-finished suit pieces, probably discards or templates or something. Mostly, they were black, but the oldest among them had accents in blue--apparently Bruce, or someone who worked for him, had tried to accessorise Batman at some point. John couldn’t help but grin at the idea. Most of these pieces didn’t exactly fit either, but he cobbled them together the best he could. After so much violence, Gotham still had more than its share of shady peddlers of barely used body armor and police riot gear, and John supplemented with that. Finally, after several frustrating days of work, he had something he could potentially wear out. It was too heavy, but it protected his body and masked his face. There were several different types of utility and gadget belts around, as well as various sheaths for weapons and gizmos, and the more of those John added, the safer he felt. 

Looking at himself in the mirror, John wasn’t all that impressed. He was mostly in black, with a blue slash across his chest where he’d needed to cover body armor with two different shirt parts. It looked homemade as hell, like he was engaging in some kind of cosplay. But time was short, and it was going to have to do. He’d already decided that he needed to get out, make sure his presence was known, before Bane appeared to the general public. Their reaction to knowing he was alive and in Gotham scared him nearly as much as the man himself--nothing is dangerous like a huge, scared population, and Gotham had one ready-made. 

The last problem John saw, as he readied himself to leave the cave at nightfall, was that, while he may be able to pass (in the dark, anyway) as some sort of superhero/vigilante/possibly insane man, he certainly wasn’t going to pass as Batman. The outfit was too wrong, his body was too wrong, his voice was too wrong, it just wasn’t going to happen. There was no way the people of Gotham--citizen and criminal alike--were going to buy that Batman had returned. They were going to have to believe that someone new had come to take his place.

For this first night out, John decided to go on foot, as he was still intimidated by the Batman vehicles. He was a perfectly good driver, but there were buttons and switches he still couldn’t identify, which could be an inauspicious beginning. He started at St. Swithins, checking to make sure everything was calm and orderly there. There was no sign of any trouble, so on he went.

The streets of Gotham were much quieter at night than they used to be. The occupation had left the citizens skittish, and even the criminal element was still operating further under the radar than before, though they were increasingly brash. After a couple of hours of patrolling, John came upon a man berating and slapping a woman in the street. The woman looked to be a prostitute, the man a john. John leveled the man with one punch, making enough of an impact that he didn’t try to rise from the pavement. 

“Go home,” he told the woman, keeping his voice as low and steely as possible, just as Bruce had. 

The woman looked at him in disbelief. “You’re...not Batman.”

No shit, thought John irritatedly. But he just said, “no.”

“Do you know Batman?” The woman’s previous fear seemed to have dried up as quickly as her attacker’s ass hit the street.

“Yes.” John said, before he considered if it was the right answer. “Now go.”

She gave him a final look, then turned and teetered away on her high heels. 

John turned back to the man on the street. “That’s not how you treat women,” he said. “That’s not how you treat anybody.”

The man whimpered in response. “Please don’t hit me again.”

Oh for Christ’s sake. John was even more irritated now. He hadn’t even needed to break a sweat, much less use any of the toys he he brought. He just wanted to leave now. “Don’t do it again,” he warned the man. Then, “I’ll know if you do.” He hated it as soon as he said it. He wasn’t fucking Santa Claus. Feeling stupid, he turned and stalked away. At least, he thought he stalked. He may have sort of skipped. It was hard with so much body armor on.

John was still irritated by his anti-climactic first encounter when he came upon his second. This one was a mugging, and though it required him to chase the mugger for a couple of blocks, it was again too easy to be any solace. When he saw he’d been caught, the mugger dropped the bag he’d stolen and put his hands up, not even offering a fight. So again, a short, deep-voiced lecture and everybody went on their way.

John wondered, as he walked back toward his car, if Batman ever felt this unchallenged. He should be thankful for it, he told himself--it was as easy a start as he could have hoped for. Tomorrow, he’d be better. Tomorrow, he wouldn’t feel like he was reading off a fortune cookie when he spoke.

John was just turning onto the street where he’d parked when he felt someone behind him. He couldn’t hear anything, but there was some sort of shift in the ground, some kind of change in the air. He kept walking, but paid closer attention. He knew better than to stop and look over his shoulder--if he was going to be attacked, it would be better if he looked as if he didn’t see it coming. He braced himself.

The attack didn’t come. Instead, the presence he’d felt got closer, until it was right behind him. “Detective Blake, you’ve changed your clothing.”

That voice was unmistakable and unforgettable. It had featured in John’s nightmares, just as it had featured in the nightmares of so many Gotham citizens. The presence behind John no longer felt like a person, it felt like a brick wall, like he had suddenly found the world rising at his back, eating up the sidewalk as soon as he stepped off it.

For a moment, John considered running. It was possible--even probable, maybe--that he’d be faster than someone as large as Bane, at least presuming Bane was alone. But before he’d made up his mind to do it, Bane closed in. In an instant, John found himself up against a brick building, a huge hand around his neck, his feet not even touching the ground. “What have you been doing, Detective?”

Many of the street lamps had been recently repaired, so there was sufficient light for John to see that Bane didn’t look bigger on TV. The real thing was monstrous, both in size and in voice, the muzzle-looking mask only making the spectre more like something from a horror movie. At this point in his life, there weren’t a whole lot of things that scared John, but he was so terrified in that moment that he was actually surprised not to wet himself.

When John didn’t answer the question, Bane gave him a shake, bouncing his body off the wall. It sent pain through him, but for Bane, it appeared to be nothing more than a jostle. “I asked you a question, and I do not like to repeat myself.” 

John opened his mouth, but wasn’t able to make a sound beyond gasping out around the hand at his throat. Realizing the issue, Bane dropped him, but crowded closer, making it clear that there was no way John would be able to escape around him. 

For a moment, John was overcome just by having this monster of a man so close to him. The hissing of Bane’s breath through the mask seemed terrifyingly loud. His chest was nearly pressed up against John, his sharp eyes peering at him from mere inches away. Realizing he had to speak, John said quickly, “I’m not a detective anymore.” It wasn’t an answer to Bane’s question, but John wasn’t even sure what the question was, and he’d caught on the way Bane was addressing him, with the title and weird formal tone.

“Indeed,” Bane said, not surprised. “Just Blake, then? Or John Blake?” He didn’t give John time to answer, clearly not concerned with John’s opinion on what he should be called. “Why are you here, John Blake?”

“I’m walking to my car.” This answer seemed safe enough, and honestly, John’s head was spinning too hard to think very clearly.

Bane didn’t roll his eyes, but looked as if he might. “I will be more specific. Why are you dressed like this and hitting people?”

John shivered when he realized Bane must have been following him. Bane continued. His voice was undeniably amused now. “Do you seek to replace the Batman?”

John scowled. It wasn’t THAT funny. “No,” he spat out. “Just trying to help people.”

“Help them outside the law, no-longer-Detective Blake?” The amused tone didn’t change.

John had been told his whole life that he needed to work on controlling his temper. It was never more true than at that moment, when he decided, clearly without thinking it through, to try to break free.

Though John gave his very hardest push, Bane didn’t even move. Instead, he picked John up again, this time using both hands, by his shoulders, and bounced him off the wall. His head didn’t smack, luckily--it likely would have bashed in his skull if it had--but everything else hit hard, and John crumpled instantly to the pavement, pain radiating from every limb. Before he was even aware it was there, Bane’s huge boot hit his stomach. John couldn’t even roll over before he began to vomit. 

Bane looked disdainfully down at John as he laid on the cement, vomit down the front of his makeshift suit, his entire body throbbing. “You are not the Batman,” he said. “You will get killed.” 

I’m going to get killed right now, John thought. 

The panic must have shown in John’s eyes, as Bane continued. “These small crimes you think you’re preventing--they are nothing. There is a vacuum of power in your city, not-Detective John Blake. And the things that fill it will be dark. You are nobody to take them on.”  
“Things like you?” John spat, trying not to notice the bile and blood that rose in his throat when he spoke.

“Things like me,” Bane agreed genially. “Things worse than me, maybe.” It seemed less of a threat than an idle speculation. “Go back to your police, John Blake. This world is not for you.”

To John’s surprise, Bane turned then, and walked away down the street, leaving him as he was, hurting and sick, but still alive.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning in this chapter, there are mentions of and non-descriptive scenes of male-on-female rape. Proceed with caution if that is a trigger for you.

It took John an embarrassingly length of time to drag himself back to his car, and then back to his apartment. Once he finally got there, it was all he could do to strip off and fall onto his bed. He knew he’d be grossed out by himself in the morning, but showering was just going to be too hard.

The odd part was, once he hit the mattress, John slept. The adrenaline and fear that had kept him moving ebbed away, and he slept better than he had in months. Years, maybe. 

The morning was just as lousy as predicted.

It took a couple of days for John to recover enough to consider going back out. He didn’t want to do it--Bane’s warning rang in his ears. It was true that in a city like Gotham, there was no way that the increasing petty street crime John had been reading about in the papers was going to be the worst of things. The city had never been safe, never been clean, but now, with Batman gone, the Dent Act overturned, the prison and mental hospital recently emptied--there was literally no limit to the terror that might come next. It was hard to imagine something worse than Bane, but if there was one thing growing up in Gotham had taught John Blake, it was that there can always be something worse.

So it was his job to suit up again, to push his fear into the bottom of his belly and try to learn how to fill Batman’s shoes. He didn’t see anybody else stepping up to do it, and he had, after all, been chosen by Bruce Wayne himself. Despite Bane’s casual insistence that he’d get himself killed--which he most likely would--he had to try.

John’s second night of patrol was much like the first. The streets were mostly quiet, and the places he saw to intervene didn’t really require his intervention--they’d be easily dealt with by even the underpowered Gotham PD. Still, John figured he needed the practice, so he dispatched a mugger and ran down a shoplifter. A few more nights produced similar results. Whatever big crime was happening in Gotham, it wasn’t showing its face.

One night, John heard a woman crying in an alley. He took just a moment to brace himself before walking forward, sure he was about to interrupt something far worse than anything he’d come upon so far. He wasn’t wrong--what was in progress was almost certainly an attempted rape--a hooded man had a small woman on the ground, his hands pulling at her waistband, trying to unfasten her pants.

John didn’t even think, he just acted. Later, he wouldn’t be able to replay how the man moved from leaning over the woman on the ground to being face-down in the alley, his arm bent unnaturally, John’s boots hammering at his kidneys. But he didn’t stop until the would-be rapist stopped moving.

“Did you...did you kill him?” While John was busy, the lady had been putting herself back together, and now she stood a few feet away, looking scared, but determined. Her face was streaked with tears and grime, but her hand was steady where she gripped her purse. 

“No.” John nudged the man with his toe. “He’ll live.” He wanted to reach out to the woman, to comfort her, but thought better of it. The last thing she needed was another man touching her without permission. “Call the police,” he instructed. “And then wait out in the light.”

Silently, the woman nodded and walked toward the street.

John backed into the shadows, keeping an eye on the potential rapist until the cops showed up. He listened as the woman described what happened, and how it ended. 

“Was it Batman?” one of the police officers asked.

“No,” she insisted. “Someone else. Younger, smaller…” She looked again at the man still lying face down on the street. “Meaner.”

As he walked back toward his apartment, John thought about that characterization. He felt like it should bother him, but it didn’t. 

He was within two blocks of his place when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up again, and the fear he’d kept under wraps for days began to move up his throat. This time, he told himself, he would run. There was no shame in avoiding a fight you knew you couldn’t win, and living to fight another day. But once again, he couldn’t make himself do it. Within seconds, he was dragged into an alley, crowded against yet another wall, face-to-face with Bane.

“You do not heed my warning.” Bane was once again too close for any kind of comfort. John could feel the air moving through his mask. “Again you come out to play.” 

“I am not playing,” John gritted through his teeth, waiting for the beating to begin.

“You think you are not, John Blake. But you are.” Before John even realized he’d moved, Bane had flipped him around so his face smashed against the wall and crowded behind him even closer. Bane’s hand held one of John’s wrists, twisting his arm behind him. “You are laughably easy to disarm.” The hissing breath was near his ear now, but Bane’s other arm pushed against his neck, so he could not turn his head. “What happens now?” Bane asked softly. 

John tried to twist his body, to find some sort of leverage to push away, but all it did was cause his arm to twist more painfully and Bane’s forearm to push harder against the back of his neck. There was no way out.

“What’s your point?” John gasped. “That you can kill me? I already knew that. Go ahead and do it.”

Surprisingly, Bane laughed. It was a strange sound, coming from behind the mask, but that was undeniably what it was. “John Blake, if I intended to kill you, you’d be long dead.” He didn’t let up the pressure.

“Then what the fuck are you doing?”

“I am watching. I am waiting for you to fall.” 

John couldn’t help shivering. Bane’s voice was too close, his body was too close, his words were too ominous. “I’m not going to fall,” John grunted, stubborn.

Laughing again, Bane easily picked him up, one hand at the back of his neck and the other arm circling his waist, and tossed him across the alley like he was no more than a stray cat. John landed hard, the wind knocked out of him.

Bane stalked toward him and once again stood over him as he lay on the ground. “You will fall,” he said, nonchalant. “But perhaps, you will learn to pick yourself up. Perhaps, if you get...meaner.”

He’d been there. That bastard had been there when the woman described John to the cops. John’s breathe had barely returned to his body when he gasped, “Why are you following me? What do you want?”

Bane was quiet a moment, as if considering John’s question. Finally, he simply said, “I want to see how it ends.” Then he turned and walked away.

Great. Just what he needed. A fucking audience.

It was two weeks before John saw Bane again. In the meantime, things got much worse. It turned out the attempted rape John interrupted wasn’t the only one that happened that night in Gotham. There had also been at least one every night since. The would-be rapist John beat down couldn’t be the culprit--he was still in the hospital, a ruptured spleen and several broken ribs keeping him there. But he wasn’t talking, and there appeared to be others--more than one, as some of the rapes happened at the same time.

John met with Gordon. The Commissioner was gray-skinned, near shaking with too much caffeine and not enough sleep. He hadn’t looked this bad since the occupation. 

“It seemed to be planned...somehow synchronized,” Gordon told him. The rapes happened quickly and quietly, women being snatched off the street and returned within minutes, violated. They weren’t otherwise harmed, unless they fought back, in which case they were subdued, but not seriously injured. “It’s not like any sexual assault I’ve seen before,” Gordon said, his face twisted. “It’s so...systematic.” 

John was puzzled and horrified. A ring of rapists? He was barely able to manage muggers and thieves. For what had to be the millionth time since his death, John wished hard for Batman.

“We’re trying,” Gordon was saying, “but we can’t be everywhere.” Then he said something that made John sit up straighter. “And to top it of everything else, we have somebody running around in a homemade suit, pretending to be Batman. Probably some kid. Going to get himself killed.”

John bristled, but held his tongue. He could really use a few more votes of confidence. Gordon continued, telling John a version of the story about the woman he’d saved in the alley. He didn’t mention the part about John being mean--just young and small.

After lunch, John went by St. Swithin’s to hang out with the kids and ask a few subtle questions. It was amazing how much they knew sometimes. Now, though, they seemed to have nothing. Several of the rapes had happened in their neighborhood, but nobody had seen or heard anything, or knew anyone who had. Whomever was perpetrating these crimes, they knew how to keep hidden.

John was going out every night now, searching the shadows for rapists, his ears always cocked for the sound of Bane’s mechanical breathe. He was anxious for the man’s next appearance, if only to be reassured of his inclination not to kill him. He did not, however, expect or appreciate the setting of their next meeting. It was near dawn, and John was coming from the cave, dressed not in his makeshift uniform, but in his regular clothes, his guard down.

There was no warning. In between one step and the next, John was tackled to the ground so hard his head spun. Bane straddled him easily, holding his legs down with his own, both wrists held in one hand above his head. John arched his back instinctively, trying to break free, but it was more than useless.

“You are sloppy, John Blake,” Bane rasped. With the hand not holding John’s wrists, he ran a finger over John’s unshielded face. “A hideout is no good if it can be so easily found.”

John’s heart sank. So Bane knew not only who he was, but where he was coming from. When he got out of this, he’d have to find a new location. How could Bane not have already started stealing things? His mind wound frantically.

“I have no use for your toys,” Bane said, clearly reading his expression. “If I need weapons, I can find them.”

John shook his head slowly. Bane’s intentions had never been clear, but he was getting weirder and weirder. “If you don’t want to kill me, and you don’t want to steal from me, what the everloving fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m warning you,” Bane growled. “And this is the last time.” He released John’s hands and got up far more quickly than should be possible for a man so large. Before John could even pull himself into a sitting position, Bane’s boot was on him, holding him down, leaving what would surely be a perfect, boot-shaped bruise on his stomach. He stared at John as he held him down. John thought he was going to kick him, had braced himself for it, but he didn’t. Eventually, he simply lifted his foot and walked away.

John waited several minutes before pulling his bruised body up. There was no way for him to know, clearly, when Bane was watching him and when he was not. He felt eyes on him the entire back back to his apartment.

John was in the shower by the time daylight started to filter through his dirty little windows. The bruise he’d known was coming was already black on his stomach, and his whole body hurt, again. John tilted his head against the wall, tired and sore and wound up. He didn’t even think about it much before he took himself in hand, hoping that jerking off would, at the very least, help remove some of the tension in his shoulders. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift, knowing it would go to places he’d rather it didn’t, but too tired to care.

The beginning of the fantasy was similar to his usual--he was being chased, there were heavy footsteps behind him. He was scared, panting and aroused, the smell of blood and sweat on the air. He was caught, shoved to his knees. His arms were held behind him.

This morning, though, the footsteps felt familiar, the hands behind his back were held not with rope or cuffs, but by a large, strong hand. He heard mechanical breathing. His captor didn’t speak, but John knew who it was. His mind unspooled as he worked his hand harder over his shaft, as if he were both in his own body, watching himself, and also in the body he was watching, shoved against the pavement, his jeans pulled down. John imagined a bruising grip at his hips, and insistent hand between his ass cheeks, finding entry without permission, without lubrication. He imagined pain, he imagined the damp ground, and he imagined the push of a cock far too large to belong to a typical man. Before his imagination could get any further, though, he was coming, surprising himself, and returning, suddenly, to his body in the shower, and to his incredible shame.

It was only a reaction to his fear, John told himself, trying to sleep for a few hours as the sun crawled up the sky. It didn’t mean he actually wanted it, or that he actually wanted Bane. He was uneasy, though, struggling to even admit to himself that he’d actually just jerked off to the idea of being taken by force by a monster. Even for him, it was a new level of psychotic. 

John groaned and flopped over. Maybe he should find a new shrink. Maybe he should just get the fuck out of this city before it actually made him crazy. Maybe he should get a girlfriend. A boyfriend. Something. But he knew even as he thought these things that he wouldn’t do any of them. Instead, he’d keep going out at night, hunting for the horrible men who were terrorizing Gotham’s women, and waiting to be jumped from the shadows. What did Bane mean when he said this warning was his last? 

As he ate dinner (a bowl of slightly stale cereal--he wasn’t exactly a gourmet), John watched the evening news. The headline story was, as it had been for more than a week, the rapes. Jim Gordon was interviewed again, looking beaten down, making a plea that any citizen with information come forward. Bane’s appearances had, so far, been kept out of the news. In fact, beyond Gordon’s telling him of the initial sighting, and John’s own interactions with him, there seemed to be no news of Bane from any source. It made John even more uneasy. 

Flicking off the TV and putting his bowl in the sink, John considered his options. He could stay in tonight. He hurt all over, and a night off would be very nice. But there were rapists out there, and they were hitting every single night. There was no way he could let that happen without at least trying to find them. So he sighed and gathered his things, headed toward the cave. He was afraid he’d find Bane there, but he had no other choice--that’s where all his gear was stowed.

After a comically slow and quiet entry into the cave, John found nobody there and nothing disturbed. Bane may not have been lying when he said he had no interest. Figuring he had no choice but to assume nothing had been sabotaged, John suited up and headed out into the night.


	3. Chapter 3

For the next week, John didn’t see Bane. He thought a lot about the “final warning,” but he couldn’t let it slow him down. He had to try to stop the rapes. For a few days, they did stop, but toward the end of the week, another incident was reported. Gordon, when John saw him, looked even worse than he had previously. The streets were full of Gotham cops, interviewing every prostitute and drug dealer they could find, trying to suss out the rapists, but nothing was coming of it.

In his searches for the rapists, John stumbled upon something else. He’d cornered a dealer he knew, a guy called Manny with whom John had tussled before when he sold to the kids from St. Swithin’s. Cowering under John’s fists, clearly with no idea he was dealing with the former-detective John Blake under the superhero suit, Manny cried, “don’t hurt me! I got somethin’ you want to know!”

John stopped for a moment, not letting Manny go, but pausing his assault. “Yeah? What’s that? Something about the rapes?”

Manny shook his head. “No, man, I don’t know about that. Nobody knows about that.”

John pulled his arm back, ready to hit Manny again. “You don’t know shit.”

“No! No! It’s drugs. New drugs.”

John waited and let Manny catch his breath.

“Someone is making new shit.” Raising his hand to show he meant John no harm, Manny reached into his pocket and pulled out a small baggie. “They smoke it like crack,” he said. “But it ain’t rock. Does something else. Makes you strong. Makes you feel no pain.”

John scowled and grabbed the baggie. “Doesn’t sound like anything too new.”

Manny shook his head again. “It is. You’ll see. These junkies...they’re gonna start fucking shit up on this.” He nodded sagely toward the bag.

“Where’s it coming from?” John pocketed the baggie for further study later. “Who’s producing it?”

Manny hesitated, but John made it clear he had no problem beating the information out of him, so Manny ended up giving it readily. “Don’t know for sure,” he said. “But they say...they say the Scarecrow is back.”

As he headed home, John considered this information. Crane had been on GPD’s radar a long time, first with his insane hallucinogenic nightmare drug in the water supply, and then, after he’d been released from Markham by Bane’s men, as the demented judge in Bane’s mock court. After the siege ended, he was low on the list of players the police had tried to round back up and return to incarceration. He was dangerous--smart and insane--but so were a whole lot of other people. 

John sighed. It would make sense for Crane to be manufacturing drugs again, if he was still at large. There was no way he could sit on a bizarre mockery of a judge’s bench now, so why not go back to his roots? If he was making something that was getting onto the streets, then the likelihood of chaos was pretty high. He’d have to call Gordon in the morning.

As he slipped into sleep, John wondered once again what had happened to Bane, and what his cryptic last warning had been about. Did he only mean that he wouldn't see John to warn him again? That he was leaving Gotham? Or was it something more sinister? Shivering under his blankets, John reminded himself, for the millionth time, that if Bane wanted to kill him, he’d already be dead. He had other things to focus on now--much more pressing psychopaths to fear. But he never quite got Bane out of his mind.

The incident in the shower had been repeated twice. As John stroked himself, trying desperately to get the tension in his body to unwind for long enough so he could sleep, Bane ran through his thoughts. He couldn’t see Bane, but he knew him, could hear his mechanical breathing, feel his huge hands. Each time, John came, gasping, his body wracked with equal parts arousal and fear. Each time, he told himself it was normal, just a reaction to the stress, that it wouldn’t last. And each time, he believed himself a bit less.  
____________________________________________________________________________

Gordon hadn’t known about Crane, but he took the news as well as could be expected. Which was to say, he cursed under his breath and sighed heavily. “Of course,” he said. “He would pop up again.” Then he paused, the phone line momentarily silent. “How did you say you heard this, John?”

Though it came easily to him, John didn’t like to lie. “One of the kids at St. Swithin’s,” he said. “Said there’s new shit going around, and it’s coming from the Scarecrow. I have a sample.” 

“That’s good work,” Gordon said. “Are the kids taking it?”

“No, not so far as I can see,” John replied. “They’re scared of it.”

“Good. Bring the sample down and we’ll send it to the lab and see what we’re dealing with here. And John? Thank you.”

After he hung up, John waited out the pang of guilt he felt for lying to Gordon. He’d known, when he made the decision to attempt to pick up where Bruce left off, that he’d have to spend a lot of time lying. He figured it wouldn’t be too bad--there just weren’t that many people around who cared enough about him to make lying about his whereabouts necessary--but it still gave him pause when he had to lie to Gordon. After everything they’d been through together during the occupation, Gordon felt more like a father than anybody John had ever known. 

Two days later, with the police lab still working on the sample and no more news about Crane, John was prowling around on roof tops, thinking about how creepy this all was, but comforting himself with the idea that Batman must have done the very same thing. He heard a woman scream, fairly close by. Taking just a moment to figure out which direction the noise came from, John sprinted as fast as he could toward the sound. One quick, clumsy, loud trip down a fire escape, and he found himself in an alley with a would-be rapist and his victim. The scene was so much like before that John felt a sudden rush of deja vu as he ran forward and attacked the man. 

The fight was more intense than the last time, the rapist ready for John and clearly having some training. He wasn’t much bigger than John, though, and was considerably slower, so after a few minutes, John had him subdued, lying on the ground with John’s boot holding him down. “Call the police,” John barked at the victim, who already had her cell phone in her hand.

“They’re already here,” said the victim. For the first time, John looked at her. She looked far calmer than was reasonable, and a moment later, John knew why. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a gun and a badge. “Carla Thomas, Gotham PD.”

“This was a sting?” John widened his eyes.

“Indeed. But you saved me having to do the hard work.” She smiled. John could see now that although she was dressed like she might be a prostitute, Thomas’ teeth were clean and white, her hair and skin looked healthy. She clearly did not live on the street. The sound of sirens approached.

Fuck. John hadn’t considered this possibility, and he had no easy way out. “Um…” he trailed off as he tried to think of a way to disappear before any more cops arrived.

Carla Thomas walked forward, replacing John’s foot on the prone rapist with her own, and leveling her gun at the man’s head. “Go,” she said. “And be fucking careful. Whoever you are.” 

John didn’t wait to be asked again, just disappeared into the night.

Hours later, John ran out of ways to feel stupid for almost getting caught and started to feel victorious. Had the victim not been a police officer and the rape not been part of a sting, he would have saved her. He’d found the incident and subdued the criminal with no help from her. In fact, so far as he could remember, she’d just watched. She’d have provided backup if he’d needed it, but he hadn’t. 

John knew vigilantism was illegal, and that Gotham, in particular, had a checkered history with it and an unsure opinion of it. Batman was still a hero to many, but not to everybody. There were those who still believed he killed Harvey Dent, regardless of the evidence otherwise. Bane, too, was seen as a form of vigilante justice, with his speeches and his mock court, so many Gotham citizens associated non-formal justice with horror. The last thing John needed, as he tried to find his feet as Gotham’s new protector, was publicity, or police interference. 

Watching the morning news and then glancing through the paper, John was happy to see that Officer Thomas did not appear to have mentioned his role to the press. He had no idea whether she had shared it with her superiors or not, but if nothing else, it wasn’t in the news. Thank God for small favors. 

For the next few days, John trained harder and felt lighter than he had in some time. The last bruises left by Bane were faded now, and he felt strong. He felt like he might actually be able to make a difference in Gotham, even if it was only with cleaning up the regular trash on the streets. Bane’s warning about new sources of evil filling Gotham’s vacuum rang in his head when he let it, but there was nothing he could do but keep learning, keep working. Hopefully, by the time someone really bad appeared, John would be ready for them.

Gordon’s next call was with the results of the police lab testing of Crane’s new drug. John appreciated the call--even though he had given Gordon the sample, there was no obligation for the police to share the results with him. “I wanted you to know, so that you can tell the kids,” Gordon explained. “Make sure they don’t start messing with this stuff.”

“Of course,” John replied. “What is it?”

“We’re actually not sure,” Gordon began. “It’s not like anything anybody here has seen before. It’s steroid based, but fast-acting, with elements of alpha-PVP and a heavy dose of morphine.”

John hadn’t ever worked narcotics and wasn’t sure what he was hearing. “What’s alpha-PVP?”

“On the street, it’s called flakka, or sometimes gravel” Gordon explained. “It’s a stimulant. Makes the user insanely aggressive. We’ve never seen this combination, but the idea appears to be to dull pain while simultaneously increasing strength and aggression.”

John was quite for a moment, wondering if Gordon was having the same thought he was. It didn’t take long to answer the question. “John,” Gordon said, his voice low and thoughtful, as if John was a confidant of his own age and rank, not a very young former cop. “Do you think Crane is making something like what Bane used? Like what he was breathing through the mask?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, sir.” John tilted his head against the apartment wall, trying to keep himself from pacing. “Do you still think Bane is in Gotham?”

“We don’t know. There haven’t been any sighting recently. Homeland Security hasn’t picked him up anywhere else, though.”

“If Bane is still here, and Crane is making his drugs…” John’s voice trailed off. “You think Bane was injured at City Hall, right?”

“We believe so,” Gordon replied. “I know he and Bru--he and Batman fought, and he must have been hurt, as he didn’t come after Miranda Tate.”

“So maybe he’s been lying low, recovering,” John mused. “And now he’s restocking or something?” John knew he should tell Gordon about his interactions with Bane, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. If Gordon knew what he was doing, he’d find a way to stop it. Much as Gordon appeared to respect him, John was a kid in Gordon’s eyes, not in any way fit or ready to take up Batman’s mantle. He had to keep it to himself. “Is he going to make another play for Gotham?” John asked, finally. The idea was almost too awful to bear. 

“Son, I have no idea.” 

John hated how defeated Gordon sounded. He wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to be him, his entire family gone, his world completely upside down after living through not one nightmare, but several. To have his son threatened by Dent, to survive the chaos and murder of The Joker, and then to survive Bane’s occupation. How did Gordon keep upright? Now, too, he’d lost the trust of the city and the force, and was hanging on to his position only because literally nobody else wanted it. John’s heart hurt for Gordon. He was probably just as lonely as John.

After the called ended, John sat down on his bed to think. His mind swirled with Bane, the drugs, the rapes. He replayed every conversation he’d had with Bane, searching for clues to his plans for Gotham. Despite not seeing him for a few days, John didn’t believe Bane was gone. He could still feel Bane’s enormous shadow, lurking just out of sight, waiting for John to fail.


	4. Chapter 4

The failure came faster than John had hoped. Two nights later, still a bit high from his victory over the rapist, John came upon what appeared to be another attack. When he got closer, it turned out to be a mugging, rather than a rape, but that didn’t mean it shouldn’t be dealt with. John charged in, not fully taking stock of the situation. He was rewarded by a bullet.

John hadn’t ever been shot before. He had no idea how fast it would make him crumple, what the pain would be like. He’d assumed it would make him feel hot, that amazingly fast moving metal, but instead he went cold. His vision swam, and he could hear screaming. Then he blacked out.

The first time John came to, he had no idea where he was. He was cold, all over, and he couldn’t move. He heard voices, but they were in a language he couldn’t understand. He couldn’t force his eyes open, so he left them closed and tried to focus on what he could hear and feel around him. No beeping, no hospital sounds. Besides the low voices, the only sound he heard was running water. Whatever he was lying on was hard, not a mattress. He didn’t feel tubes or needles in his arms. As he tried to puzzle it out, he lost consciousness again.

Next time John woke, he was slightly less groggy. He still couldn’t really move, but he was able to force his eyes open. When he did, he saw he was in the cave, lying on the ground. He heard the voices again--their language was still indecipherable, but they sounded rushed, maybe concerned. He couldn’t tell where they were, though they sounded close. He couldn’t turn his head. He felt a prick in his arm, and he went back to sleep.

When John woke the third time, he felt he’d slept a long time. The cool air and hard surface were gone, and his body was stiff and sore, but moveable. When he opened his eyes, John saw his own bedroom ceiling, water-stained and beginning to sag in one corner. He tried to lift himself up and immediately fell backward, unable to make the effort. Looking down, he saw he was shirtless, with white bandages wrapped around his torso and over his shoulder.

Before John could figure out what to do, the door to his room opened. A vaguely familiar man entered. He was slight, about John’s size, with a scruffy beard and piercing blue eyes. He didn’t speak to John, just approached the bed slowly, holding John’s gaze. “Who are you?” John finally rasped.

“Barsad,” the man replied, with an accent John couldn’t place.

“What are you doing here?” John’s mind was spinning, he couldn’t think. “Have I been drugged?”

Barsad smirked. “Yes,” he said, gesturing toward John’s night table, on which was a bottle and a hypodermic needle. “You were shot.”

John concentrated and tried to remember. He’d been looking for the rapists. There was a mugging...it was very hazy. 

“Why are you taking care of me? How did I get here?” The questions exhausted him, he was barely able to get them out.

Barsad raised his eyebrows, but didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up the needle and filled it. 

“No, don’t…” but there was no way John could fight him. His mind was working so slowly, the needle was in his arm before he’d even taken note of what Barsad was doing.

Then he slept again.

John slipped in and out of consciousness, and he was uneasy. He knew he was in his apartment, but that things were not as they should be. He wasn’t able to concentrate long enough to discern what was wrong, though, and each time he felt he was almost there, he fell back to sleep. 

Finally, John woke with a clearer mind. He remembered being shot, and being sure that he was about to die. He remembered waking up before, and seeing a strange man in his room, and being given drugs. His instincts kicked in, and through a painful haze, he tried to rise from the bed. If the man was still here, he needed to protect himself.

Before he could stand, though, the door to his room opened. Seeing the huge frame filling the doorway, John gave up and sat back down on the bed.

“What are you doing here?” John asked, hating how tiny and scared his voice was. There was no way he could protect himself from Bane on his best day, much less now. 

Bane didn’t answer right away. He stepped toward John, looming over him, peering down. “You look better,” he said, his voice distorted as always by the mask.

“Look better…?” John shook his head, confused. “How did I get here? Why are you here? Did you shoot me?” It was all so confusing.

Bane raised his eyebrows. “I already told you, John Blake. If I wanted you dead, you would be dead. It would not require shooting you.”

Before Bane could say anything else, the other man--Barsad--came into the room. John’s bedroom was small, and with the two of them in it, seemed like an elevator or a closet. Barsad moved smoothly past Bane, putting his hand to John’s forehead. The gesture was odd, like a mother’s. John tried to jerk his head away.

Barsad frowned at him. “Fever’s broken,” he said. “You might live, Detective Blake.” His voice was impassive, as if he couldn’t possibly care whether John lived. 

John felt his frustration growing, magnified by the way it zapped his clearly limited energy. “Is one of you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“You were shot.” Bane said.

“And?” 

“I picked you up and brought you to your cave.” Bane shrugged. “Then, when you were stable, here.”

John’s confusion only grew. “Are you the doctor?” he asked Barsad.

“No. Just someone who has dealt with these things.” Barsad was filling another needle.

“No, goddammit. No more drugs. I need to know what is going on. I need to think.” John wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a glimmer of approval in Barsad’s eyes when he said it.

Barsad put the needle on the table and looked into John’s face for the first time since entering the room. “Two bullets,” he said. “One to the shoulder, one to the stomach. Both went through. You lost a lot of blood, but nothing seems to be damaged internally. If you don’t get an infection, you’ll live.” 

John nodded slowly, then turned his eyes toward Bane. “Why did you pick me up? Did you kill those men? And how did you know where I live?”

“It is not difficult information to come by,” Bane said. “And yes, I killed the man who shot you, and his associate.” He did not answer the first question.

John sighed. How the hell did he end up here? “Why are you taking care of me?” he asked, turning his head slightly to indicate he was talking to Barsad. “You don’t even know me.” _Plus, you’re a psycho killer,_ he added silently.

“Because my brother asks it of me,” Barsad said. 

Of course. No information from the underling. John turned back toward Bane. “Why do you want me alive? It was one thing not to murder me for no reason, but to actively save my life? Why? You said you wanted to watch me fail.”

Bane’s eyes looked as if he were frowning, but John couldn’t be sure with the bottom half of his face hidden. “Perhaps I was too hasty,” he said. “You should have a chance, before you fail.” He shook his head. “You need training. Oversight. You are not ready.”

That was certainly true--if John hadn’t known it before, he did now. “I don’t exactly have coaches lined up,” he said, bitterness apparent in his voice. “So I’m doing the best I can.” It made sense, in an odd way--Bane may well want him to fail, but he wanted him to be able to fight first. There was no sport in it otherwise.

“You will regain your strength, and then I will train you.” It wasn’t a question.

John was briefly silent. On one hand, it was the best offer he was going to get--if Bane actually meant to train him, he couldn’t be in better, or more deadly, hands. But there had to be a catch. “What’s in it for you?” 

Bane was silent again. Finally, Barsad spoke. “There is a man here, a doctor. We need him. You will help.”

“I’m not going to help you hunt someone.” John wished he could make his voice more emphatic, but he was just too weak. “I’m not going to help you hurt people!”

“I do not wish to hurt the doctor,” Bane said. “I simply need to employ him.”

John’s brow furrowed. “Employ him? For what?”

“Enough,” Bane said, making it clear the discussion was over. “Sleep again, John Blake. You will need rest to heal. This can all be discussed later.”

While John was distracted trying to read Bane’s expression, Barsad stuck him again with the needle. “Goddammit,” John yelled, but it was no use, the medicine was already kicking in. Moments later, he was asleep.

For several days, John woke only a few times a day, eating what he was given, which was all tasteless gruel and protein shakes, speaking a few words to Barsad, who was always there, and going back to sleep. Without the morphine, he was in more pain, but whatever other drugs Barsad was giving him made it slightly more tolerable. Most of the questions he asked, Barsad answered only with nods or shrugs. 

“You know, you’re not the best nurse,” John grouched. It had been five days, and he was getting twitchy and bored. “Your bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired.”

“I am not here for your amusement,” Barsad answered.

“You don’t want to be here at all, do you?” John asked. “Why do you stay? Do you do whatever he tells you to do?” John knew it was probably not a smart line of questioning, but being in bed for so long had him stir-crazy and reckless.

Barsad turned his cold blue eyes on John. “Yes,” he said, simply. “He is our leader.” He offered no more explanation.

“How much longer will you stay?” John pressed. “Where are you sleeping? Are you here all the time? You’re always here when I wake up.”

“I will stay until you can care for yourself. I am sleeping on your floor. And yes, I have been here since we brought you.” 

John was quiet. It was more caretaking than he’d ever had, really. He remembered being ten, with the flu. His foster mother at the time had four other children under her care, all younger. She told him to go to bed, then forgot he was there. Nobody to bring soup, or aspirin, or lay a cool hand on his feverish forehead. He’d been alone. When was 23, and had his appendix removed, it had been the same. He’d come back to his apartment after surgery in a taxi, and pulled himself around the best he could, recuperating alone. A wave of something John could barely identify swelled through him. “Well, thank you.” It sounded awkward, but it seemed the right thing to say.

Barsad’s eyes flickered to John’s face, surprised. “You are welcome,” he said, finally. Then he left the room.

When John was well enough to care for himself, Barsad left without saying goodbye. 

When Gordon called, John made excuses. There was no way he could explain to the Commissioner how he’d been shot, or how he’d recovered without a hospital. So he pretended to be busy with the boys, made some noises about finding a new job. Gordon sounded concerned, but also as if he had much bigger worries. Since he couldn’t pump Gordon for information without suspicion, John learned what he could from the news--the rapists were still at-large, striking not every night, but often. And two men thought responsible for a series of street robberies had been found in an alley, both of their necks snapped, evidence of a firearm having been discharged. No further information was given. 

Much to John’s chagrin, his sexual urges came back even before his body was healed. One day, just before Barsad disappeared, John awoke rock hard, pushing himself up in thrusts against the air. Barsad was not in the room, and John breathed a sigh of relief, shifting pillows to cover himself before Barsad came in. Soon after, waking up hard became a daily occurence. John struggled not to think about it, to force it out of his head. When he was slow to catch himself, though, his mind always drifted in the same direction: Bane. Fuck.

One day, Barsad showed back up with no warning and crowded John toward his bed. “The stitches will need to come out,” he explained. Used to him by now, John allowed Barsad access, and the stitches were quickly removed. It hurt some, but itched more than anything, and John was glad to see them go.

“You may begin training now,” Barsad pronounced as he headed back toward the door. “Bane will find you.”

After he closed the door behind Barsad, John realized he was shivering, and it was anticipation, not fear, that had his blood up. He groaned. He’d expected that whatever physiological reaction he was having to Bane would eventually disappear, but it seemed only to be growing.

John sat down at his table and held his head in his hands. He absolutely could not allow Bane to know. He had no idea what the reaction would be if he did, but it wouldn’t be good. However, refusing Bane’s offer of training was also a bad idea--at this point, John was desperate to learn anything he could, especially with the rapists still on the loose and the GPD seemingly at a loss. Whatever favor Bane wanted in return was something John would just have to address when it was brought up again. Until then, he needed to keep his libido in check and take in any advice Bane was offering. Oh, and not get killed. John groaned.

Two days later, Bane found him as promised. John wasn’t really “patrolling,” so much as just walking around Gotham with his eyes open. He wasn’t dressed in his makeshift suit, and he wasn’t looking for trouble, just trying to get an idea of what had changed since he’d been laid up. He’d stopped at St. Swithin’s and talked to the boys, but they hadn’t told him anything he couldn’t have learned from the newspapers. Whatever new menace there was, it was lying low.

As per usual, John didn’t hear Bane until he was within only a few inches. “Is there something wrong with your senses, John Blake?” The voice was mechanical, rough, and too near John’s ear for comfort.

John spun around. “No. I just wasn’t expecting you to sneak up on me!”

“Why would you not expect it?” Bane reached out quickly and grabbed both John’s hands, transferring them so they were trapped in one of this larger ones. 

John struggled, but knew there was no use in it. If Bane wanted to hold on to him, there wasn’t anything he’d be able to do about it.

As if reading John’s mind (how did he do that?), Bane reached one foot out and kicked very lightly at John’s leg. “If you were quick, you could sweep with this leg,” he said. “I could lose my balance and let you go.”

John tried to take the advice, sticking his foot out and hooking it behind Bane’s knee. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take Bane down. Bane took advantage of John’s second of being off-balance and struck out with this own leg, landing John flat on his back, the wind knocked from his body.

Bane knelt over John as he tried to regain breath, still holding both of his hands, now above his head. “Far too slow,” he said. “You only make yourself weaker.” 

While irritation welled in John’s throat, something else pooled lower, hot in his stomach and shooting down into his groin. Bane wasn’t putting weight on him, just kneeling next to him and holding his arms. He was close enough, though, for John to hear the whoosh of his mask, to feel the solidity of his body, and to smell him. There was metal, from the mask, and leather, from his coat. There was an almost-sweet chemical smell. And under it, there was something primal, something that made John’s blood hotter. Bane smelled more distinctly natural, distinctly male, than anything John could remember. There was no hint of soap, or aftershave, or cologne. There was no coffee from his breath, or beer clinging to his skin. In the best possible way, he smelled like an animal. Clean, yes, but wild.

John’s attention shifted away from trying to break Bane’s hold on him (it wasn’t possible anyway) to trying desperately to keep his cock from giving him away. Just as he had so often in his apartment over the past weeks, he was hardening in his pants, his body crying out for more. 

A flicker of recognition moved across Bane’s face, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. Abruptly, he let go of John’s hands and rose. “Get up,” he said. “Try again.”

“This probably isn’t a good place to do this,” John said, grasping for a change of subject, something to take the red out of his cheeks. “Anybody could come by.”

Bane nodded. “The cave, then?”

John hadn’t been back to the cave since Bane brought him there after he was shot. As they entered, he was surprised to see things had been moved around, and Barsad sat at the table, reading. He looked up when they came in, but returned to his book without speaking.

“Wait,” John said, looking around more closely. “You...you moved in here?”

“More pleasant than our prior accomodations,” Bane said without apology. “And suited to our needs.”

“But it’s not yours! It’s mine.” John looked at Bane incredulously. “You can’t just move in somewhere that doesn’t belong to you!”

Bane shook his head. “Ownership of places is a tricky thing. Why not take what you need, and use what you are given?” He gestured around, indicating the size and scope of the place. “You do not need this space, and use it only for storage. You care only because you think it belong to you.”

“But it does belong to me!”

Bane shrugged. “If you want it, you will have to take it back.”

John scowled. That was obviously not in the cards. So now he had squatters. Great. He’d have to figure out how to handle that later. One thing at a time.

Barsad suddenly closed his book and stood, moving toward them. He reached toward John and put his hand against his forehead. “You are flushed,” he said. “Are you wounds still healing properly? You don’t have a fever.”

John pulled away from his hand. The flush, he knew, was from being near Bane, and his efforts to keep his body in check. “I’m just pissed off that you’re in my cave,” he snapped.

Barsad looked distinctly unimpressed. 

“Come,” Bane said. “We’ve cleared out a place for training.”

One of the cave’s long, bricked in tunnels had been cleared of everything. Shadowy light was provided by a couple of electric lanterns. It was cold, clammy, and creepy. 

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” John quipped, looking around. “So inviting.”

Bane didn’t reply, just gave him a look that made John feel a bit like an insect, then grabbed his hands again, moving far too quickly for John to stop him. John huffed in irritation.

“Get out of the hold,” Bane instructed. He offered no other advice.

John struggled helplessly for a moment, knowing there was no way to break Bane’s grip. Then he calmed and looked around the space quickly, trying to find any sort of weapon or advantage he might use. “Good,” Bane said. “You can’t fight me off, so look for another way out.”

John didn’t see any other way out. Finally, he decided to try distraction. “So what’s with that mask?” he asked, relaxing his arms so he wasn’t pulling against Bane’s grip. “Are you all gross under there?” His hope was that his words would catch Bane off guard for long enough for him to slip a foot in and trip him. For the briefest sliver of a second, he thought it would work, as Bane’s forehead wrinkled and he met John’s eyes. But it was too thin a ruse, and the leg John stuck out was turned against him once again when Bane swept both John’s legs from under him.

John was surprised when he didn’t fall again to the floor. Instead, Bane held him up by his wrists. John’s still-healing shoulder screamed in pain. “Fuck, put me down,” he yelled, “my shoulder!”

Bane let his feet touch the ground, but kept his hold on John’s wrists, pushing him backward until he hit the cave wall. Then, he crowded in closer, pushing his whole body against John’s, just as he had upon their first meeting. “You can’t distract me with words,” he rasped, his voice calm and close. “But you can anger me. Does that seem a good idea to you?”

It was the voice, as much as the proximity, that did it. John’s body, which he’d been fighting to keep barely managed for what seemed like hours, betrayed him completely. The blood rushed to his cock, and he pushed instinctively against Bane’s bulk. Worst of all, he whined. He cringed when he heard the noise come out of his mouth, but it was too late to take it back. Humiliated, he tried to formulate an answer. “I didn’t mean to piss you off,” he finally said, pulling his hips back as hard as he could against the wall, trying to make space between his body and Bane’s. “I was just trying to distract you.”

Bane didn’t let him escape, pushing into him more firmly when John tried to retreat. Once again, John was overwhelmed by him--his size, his scent, his sheer power. John’s stomach flipped, his hands itched at his sides. How as he going to get out of this? “You’ve made your point,” he stammered, wrestling futilely against Bane’s hold again. “You can let me go now.”

A noise that may have been a chuckle escaped Bane. “Oh, can I?” He pushed still harder against John, making it clear he could feel John’s hardened cock through their layers, where it pushed insistently against his leg. “You do not want me to let you go, not-Detective Robin John Blake. Your body says otherwise.”

Warring feelings flooded John. Arousal was the strongest, then humiliation, and then further arousal, caused, it seemed, by the humiliation. He was barely breathing, his face burning, everything below his waist completely out of his control and seeking friction. “My body is wrong,” he gritted.

“The body is never wrong,” Bane answered. His face was close too, now, as he leaned over and forced John to look at nothing but him. “It’s the only honest thing.”

John wanted so much to close his eyes, to simply relax and let Bane do whatever he wanted to do, to sag down and let his body take over, to stop fighting. But the humiliated arousal coursing through him was not alone, it was joined by pure, hard streams of shame. John knew he wasn’t supposed to want this, wasn’t supposed to want to be dominated this way, to be forced and hurt, and he especially wasn’t supposed to want it from this man, who had terrorized his city. “I...I can’t,” he finally stuttered. He felt tears prick the corners of his eyes, frustrated and ashamed. “You...I can’t with you.”

Bane held his gaze. “You can. And you will.” He dropped John’s hands, but stayed close to him. “You fight your shame now, but you will embrace it. You will learn there is no space between your humiliation and your anger and your arousal--they are all the same. I will teach you, and you will worship me.”

John’s eyes widened. “Worship you? I can’t fucking stand you!” For a moment, all his other feelings were subsumed by anger and disgust. “You tried to kill everyone! You’re a monster!”

Bane backed up, but was unphased. “Go home, Robin John Blake. You aren’t ready.” He sounded bored.

Making the smart decision, for once, John turned and left the tunnel. In the open part of the cave, Barsad still sat at the table, calmly reading his book. If he had heard any of what happened, he didn’t show it.

John had no idea what to do. He should try to kick them out of his cave, but how? And what did it mean that Bane told him to leave--was the training offer now off the table? He paused at the cave’s entrance.

“He’ll find you again,” Barsad said, without looking up. “He’s not done with you. Try not to get killed in the meantime.”

John felt he should say something, but he was truly at a loss, so he simply turned and left.


	5. Chapter 5

John was fucked. As he lay motionless on his bed, all he could think about was just how fucked he was. He had a city he was incapable of protecting, a ring of rapists, the return of the Scarecrow, and, in the sanctuary Bruce left him, two of the world’s most terrifying squatters. One of whom was now aware of how much John wanted him to traumatically fuck him. Actually, they were both probably aware of it--Barsad didn’t seem to miss much. He also had a still-healing bullet would and a destroyed half-assed superhero costume. Fucked.

After giving in to self-pity for a good 30 minutes, John tried to pull himself together. He would figure it out--he always did. People needed him. Gordon, the kids at St. Swithin’s, his neighbors, the people he saw on the street. They needed someone, and nobody else was stepping up, so he was going to have to figure it out. Even as he gave himself this internal pep talk, though, his mind spun so hard he could barely keep up. Worries and fears and apprehensions, and right in the middle of it, still and strong and terrifying, Bane.

John sighed. Bane had already been a confusing and frightening problem--even more since he and Barsad had nursed John back to health after his injury. John had admitted his attraction to himself and more or less dealt with it (meaning tried like hell to ignore it). But Bane knowing about it was a whole other thing. “I will teach you, and you will worship me.” John shivered at just the memory of the words, still equal parts horrified and so turned on he could barely stand it.

Knowing there would be no peace, and certainly no sleep, until he did something with all the shame and arousal he’d built up, John decided to go out. Maybe the problem was compounded by his not having had sex in so long. Maybe going out and hooking up would even him out. It was worth a try. 

John made it to the club, carefully dressed to indicate what he was after. Though he didn’t do this often, John was well aware of the subtle (and un-subtle, but he didn’t go that way) ways in which presentation mattered. He intentionally made himself seem smaller, weaker, playing up his trim body with skinny jeans and a thin t-shirt. Given everything else he’d been doing, it made him feel absurd to take this form, but it was the most expedient way to get what he was after.

Once he was inside, John looked around quickly, knowing what he wanted, and found it almost immediately. The guy wasn’t much to look at--his face unremarkable, his hair cut crewdly, his clothes ill-fitting. He had clearly gone to fat around the middle. But his substantial frame and height dwarfed those around him, and that was precisely what John was looking for. The dangerous, bizarre ideas that flitted through his mind, of Bane picking him up, holding him easily against a wall, forcing him down, being bigger and stronger and undeniable, those could be acted out easily enough with this stranger. 

The moves were easy, even if John hadn’t practiced them in a while. John was aware enough of his own attractiveness to know he’d normally be out of this dude’s league, so he didn’t prevaricate. He continued to make himself small, lowering his voice to a near-whisper, widening his eyes fractionally when the man met his gaze. They went through introductions (Toby, works in construction, does some bouncing on the side, used to wrestle) and the buying of watered down drinks. It took only about an hour before Toby was lowering his head down to John’s ear and asking if he wanted to get out of the club.

“Yes, but not very far out of it,” John breathed back. “I don’t think I can wait.” In truth, he’d just decided that his best bet was to get as close to the persistent fantasies of Bane as possible, and that meant an alley, not an apartment. .

Toby raised a bushy eyebrow. “Not back to my place?”

John shook his head and hopped off his barstool, knowing Toby would follow him as he headed for the door.

Once they were outside, Toby caught on. Within a few minutes, John was exactly where he’d intended to be--held up against a wall, just feet from a dumpster. He’d given a few quiet instructions (“force me, don’t ask”) and then just hung on. Toby kissed poorly, too wet and all over the place, but his hands were big, possessively palming John’s ass. Hating himself, but in too far now to back out, John closed his eyes and imagined the big body against his was Bane’s. It wasn’t easy, what with the messy kissing. John was relieved when Toby moved his mouth away. The light was dim, but John could see wonder in his eyes, the question of how he’d gotten so lucky. Just as quick was the decision not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Get on your knees.”

John was more than happy to do as he was told, relishing the feeling of Toby’s palms pushing on his shoulders. He noticed and appreciated the wet grit of the concrete under his knees as he faced Toby’s crotch, reaching for the fastenings of his jeans. 

Toby’s dick was not what John had hoped--medium sized and cut, not unlike John’s own. But he could work with it. “Do it, suck me,” Toby muttered above him, getting into his role now. He grabbed John’s hair roughly and shoved his face forward. 

John’s insides swirled. How dare this man try to force him? There were bright sparks of rage in the corners of his eyes. Heat rose in his chest, though--not anger, or not only anger, but lust. He licked his lips and waited a moment, and when Toby’s hands pushed down on him a bit harder, he rocked slightly with the feeling. He wanted this. He closed his eyes again as he wrapped a hand around Toby’s prick, thinking of Bane.

As if John’s mind could make things a reality, he heard a distinctive rasping. For a confused moment, he thought it was in his head, that he was actually hallucinating. Before he could even shake his head to clear it, though, John found himself pushed to the side, toppled against the wall. Toby was being lifted against it, his dick, still hard, poking out at a comic angle. Bane’s hands were around his neck. 

All John could do was stare. He’d thought Toby was about Bane’s size, but he’d been mistaken. Even if they were somewhat close in stature, Bane’s power made Toby seem insignificant. Toby’s face was turning red, and he was clearly unable to speak. John couldn’t quite make out what Bane was saying over the rush in his ears, the blood returning to his head, but it was something about taking advantage of those who are smaller and weaker. Then John realized what was happening, all in a rush--Bane thought he was saving John.

John got quickly to his feet. “Put him down! It’s alright!”

Bane looked at him skeptically, his hands still around Toby’s neck. Toby’s feet were off the ground. 

“He didn’t hurt me. This...wasn’t that.” John reddened, but knew he had to keep going, embarrassing or not, or Bane would likely kill this man. “Please, let him go.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Bane dropped his hands. Toby stayed upright, but just barely, choking and coughing. When he could speak, he glared at John. “Your boyfriend is a fucking psycho!” 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” John replied, quickly. “I’m sorry. That was... a misunderstanding.”

As he tucked himself back into his jeans, Toby shook his head “Some fucking misunderstanding. I better never see you here again.” He shot a quick, disbelieving look at Bane, then ran.

It was very quiet in the alley. Quiet enough John could hear Bane’s mechanical breathing. “What the fuck was that?” John finally asked. “Are you following me?” He looked at Bane with wide eyes, momentarily misplacing his shame. 

“You insist on continuing to put yourself in situations you cannot win,” Bane said. There was clearly no apology forthcoming.

“This was not one of those situations.” John said, the shame returning. Surely Bane would realize what he’d been trying to do.

“As I now see,” Bane replied. John couldn’t see his mouth, of course, but he imagined it was pursed with irritation. 

“So, uh, I guess you wasted your time.” John desperately wanted to disappear into the ground, but thought trying to get Bane to stalk off would be more likely successful.  
Instead, Bane turned to face him. John was still standing close to where he’d fallen against the wall, and he backed into it instinctively as Bane moved toward him. Fuck, why did he always do that?

“Have I?” Bane asked. His eyes moved from irritated to sly. “Tell me, Not-Detective, if you were not being forced, why did it look as though you were?”

John was quiet. He had no idea how to answer that question--neither an honest answer nor a dishonest one seeming likely to deter the man before him. 

“I will guess, then,” Bane continued when it was clear John wasn’t going to respond. “You asked that man to pretend to force you. You chose him, from the men in this establishment. You chose him because his body is large, but he’s gone soft. You knew, if you needed to, you could overpower him.” Bane took another step toward John, crowding him against the wall. “That will not work, Robin John Blake. Your body does not want a way out.”

“Seemed to be working OK,” John gritted through clenched teeth. He was concentrating on everything but Bane’s proximity, but he was surrounded, with nowhere else to look, nothing to smell or hear or feel. “Until you interrupted.”

Bane laughed, an eerie sound, and pushed closer. John could feel his heat and bulk, only centimeters away. “How would it have worked? If you had let your friend pretend to force you, if you had sucked him dry, or even if he had taken you up against this wall, do you think it would be what your body needs?” He pushed a hand between them, squeezing John’s cock through his jeans, hard. 

John moaned. The grip was too hard, the fabric too rough, and yet it set of a cascade of shivering waves of desire inside him.

Bane let go. “You will not be satisfied until you have the nerve to open yourself before someone you cannot stop.” 

John tried desperately to catch his breath, but his lungs would not cooperate. Instead, he stared at Bane and panted. Bane ran his finger along John’s jaw, a bizarrely gentle touch, followed with sudden intensity by wrapping a hand around John’s throat. He could still breath, but it was even more labored now. “You cannot stop me, Robin John Blake.”

John shivered. He was fairly sure Bane would not actually hurt him--after all he’d done to keep John alive, it would seem pointless. He was not at all sure, however, that Bane would heed anything he said. “Let go of me,” he whispered, barely able to make words.

“I think not.” Bane replied. He released John’s throat, but used his whole body to shove John harder against the wall. John’s swollen cock pushed against Bane’s leg, and John noticed a corresponding hardness against his belly. Oh, fuck.

“I...I don’t want…” John trailed off, his words sounding pathetic even to himself. He did want. He wanted hopelessly. He wanted overwhelmingly. All he felt was want.

Bane laughed again. “What makes you think I care what you want, Not-Detective?” He ground harder against John, and John was vaguely aware of his back scraping against the wall through his thin shirt. 

John waited, his breath frozen in his throat. Bane was flush against him, his head tilted slightly down. John felt his whole body hot against Bane’s, the cold of the wall against his back, and the chill of the metal mask millimeters from his cheek. Without thinking, John reacted just as he did in his fantasies, struggling against Bane, knowing he could not break free.

For a few moments, Bane let him struggle, keeping him pinned lazily, using only the weight of his body. Then he grabbed John’s hands in his and held them against the wall. “You want this,” he said slowly. “But you do not want to admit it.” He paused. “So I am taking it out of your control.”

Things went from moving slowly to moving very quickly. Bane continued to hold John’s hands against the wall with one of his while he used the other to unfasten and pull down John’s jeans. He took John’s cock in his hand without preamble, pumping it harder than was comfortable. John swallowed against the noises rising in his throat. He knew he should protest, but he was afraid if he opened his mouth, all he would do is moan.

After working John’s erection for only a minute, Bane brought his hand to John’s mouth and roughly shoved three fingers inside. John choked at first, not expecting the intrusion, but then his body took over. He sucked hard on the digits, rolling his tongue around them. They tasted of metal and clean skin and slight chemicals. They were gone as quickly as they’d entered, probing under John’s cock, behind his balls. 

John struggled again. Having Bane jerking him off was one thing, but the reality of having those thick fingers up his ass hadn’t been one he’d fully appreciated. The struggle didn’t matter in the least, though, Bane simply pushed him harder against the wall with his free hand as he shoved two fingers inside. 

“It’s polite to start with one,” John gasped, clenching his teeth at the intrusion. Bane’s fingers were thick, and not that wet. It hurt. 

“I was not trying to be polite,” Bane responded. “Now you decide how difficult you want this to be. It will hurt either way, but if you intend to fight, be forewarned that it will make it worse.”

John exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Bane was going to fuck him. Here, up against this alley wall, No matter what he said. Though his heart was beating faster than he’d thought possible, and he tasted fear in his mouth, he was suddenly calm. This wasn’t up to him anymore.

Bane felt John’s body relax. “Good,” he said softly, turning John around so he faced the wall and pulling his jeans down further, so his ass was fully exposed to the cold air. He worked the two fingers in and out in a rough rhythm. John did nothing but react, his body torn between twisting away from Bane’s fingers and chasing back to them. 

“Lube,” John finally choked out. “Please.” He was leaning fully against the wall, forced to hold still so he wouldn’t abraid his cock against it, and Bane’s fingers were opening him wider with every thrust. Over the tide of stimulation, it was difficult to keep the reality of the situation in mind. “In my pocket.”

Bane stopped for a moment, pulling his fingers out and rummaging in John’s jeans with his dirty hand, still holding John against the wall with the other. When he came up with a lube packet and condom, he shoved them into John’s hand, hanging uselessly at his side. “Open it.”

John did as he was told, and Bane slicked his fingers before returning them, adding a third. John did moan this time, more in pain than pleasure, but Bane didn’t let up, working John open quickly. John tried desperately to get a hand between his dick and the wall. 

“No, Not-Detective Blake.” Bane stopped his fingers, and John heard the sounds of his heavy belt unbuckling. “Focus.” 

“My dick is going to be a bloody stump!” John protested, moving his body back towards Bane’s unthinkingly, seeking the contact that had just stopped. John didn’t even realize Bane had let go, that it was only his form crowding John against the wall now. He heard the sound of the condom rolling on and though he should look back and see what was coming, but didn’t.

Bane said nothing as he lined himself up. John shivered hard at the first blunt push, his body rebelling suddenly against the entire operation. Bane leaned over John, bracing himself against the wall near John’s head with one arm, grabbing John’s waist with the other, and pushed in with a long, firm stroke.

John screamed. He’d deny it later, but he screamed as if he’d been stabbed. Tears pricked his eyes and his body vibrated. Bane held him firm, waiting for him to calm, then moved the hand from his waist to cup John’s cock, providing a barrier between it and the wall as he began to move.

The first few strokes were just pain. It was far from the worst pain John had ever felt, but it was certainly the worst he’d ever felt from this. Bane’s cock had was huge, and the preparation had been perfunctory. There was nothing gentle about what was happening, each thrust harder than the last, each nearly all the way out before pushing back in. After a bit, though, John felt something beyond the pain. First, he noticed the way Bane’s hand was squeezing him--not jerking him off, but rubbing against him, cradling his erection and letting him rut against it. Sparks seemed to fly from where he was still fully hard and straining against Bane’s giant palm. Then he felt the warm stretch of his ass, the fullness. He sighed. He could do this. It was going to be fine.

It was at about that point it became clear that Bane had just been warming up. Without warning, his hips shifted, and his strokes got far deeper, hitting John’s prostate relentlessly, too hard, too fast. John screamed again, this time not in pain, just in reaction to the overwhelming, endless sensation. The hand on John’s cock closed and started to jerk him hard, each thrust bashing Bane’s knuckles against the brick wall. 

“Fuck. FUCK!” John was babbling and swearing, his body completely outside his control, slamming back and forth between Bane’s hand and his cock, still trapped fully between Bane’s body and the wall. “Jesus fucking Christ on a goddamn cross. FUCK!”

Bane chuckled near John’s ear and pushed a little bit farther, but didn’t speak. 

John’s orgasm hit him like a meteor, all light and no sound, his head knocking against the wall as he collapsed forward. Bane held him up and kept fucking him through it, never slowing his hand or his hips. John hissed and groaned with overstimulation, but Bane paid no mind. 

After John came, he wasn’t sure how long things continued. He was out of his body, floating and buzzing. Bane’s hand returned to it’s first position, protecting John’s sensitive anatomy from the bricks, but not squeezing it. His hips continued at full throttle. It hurt again now, but not horribly. Mostly, John felt relaxed and unable to stand, like his bones had been liquified, and he was content enough just to let Bane manipulate his body like clay.

John heard it when Bane came, though he was too blissed out and numb to really feel much. Bane didn’t call out, but his rasping breathing shortened, then stopped, the started again, faster, as his hips stuttered to a stop. 

Bane continued to hold John up with one arm after he slipped out of him. Finally, he let go slowly, waiting to see if John would be able to stand. John continued to face the wall as he righted his clothes, already feeling his building shame. Jesus Christ, what had he done?

Behind him, Bane knew what John was thinking. He spoke before John turned around. “This time, you can tell yourself you had no choice. Next time, you will come to me.” He sounded completely confident.

John turned to face him, forcing himself to meet Bane’s eyes. “There will not be a next time,” he said firmly. “This is fucking insane.”

Bane chuckled again. “There is something else you will do for me, Not-Detective Robin John Blake.”

“Oh, will I? And stop calling me that!” It wasn’t new for John to turn shame into anger. It was comfortable for him.

Bane quirked an eyebrow. “What would you prefer I call you?”

“My name is John. Or Blake.” 

Bane shook his head. “Your name is Robin. But it is your choice, John Blake.”

John opened his mouth, but Bane continued. “You will find Doctor Crane. You have my word, I do not wish to hurt him, nor to use him to hurt anyone else.”

“Why would I trust you?” John looked at Bane, incredulous. “You just fucked me up against a wall after I said no.”

Bane chucked again. “Yes. And yet, you will want more. Come to me when you are ready to admit it.”

Before John could answer, Bane turned and walked away, looking as if nothing had ever happened.

***

John didn’t actually intend to start looking for Crane on Bane’s behalf. However, when he saw Gordon a few days after the encounter in the alley, Crane was on Gordon’s mind as well.

“You’re more worried about the drugs than the rapes?” John looked at the Commissioner uncertainly.

“Not more worried,” Gordon shook his head. “But I’ve got all the manpower I can on the rapes. Every angle we can work. And there’s just...nothing. No pattern, no evidence. Crane is, at least, a known commodity. And we know how dangerous he can be.”

John nodded. “Tell me again what you know?” He was on shaky ground, asking for police investigation details when he was no longer on the force. Sometimes he thought Gordon must know why he was asking, because Gordon always gave him something. 

“Nothing new on the rapes,” Gordon began. “Victims have nothing in common. All classes, all races. Ages from early twenties to early forties. The attacks are spread out across the city. All days of the week, all different attacker descriptions. Besides the obvious, there are no injuries. It’s as clean as it could possibly be.”

“Robberies?” John asked, though he was fairly sure he knew the answer.

“No,” Gordon paused. “One weird thing, though--the rapists are taking the victims’ ID.”

John frowned. “Not uncommon. That whole “if you tell anybody, I’ll come find you” thing?”

Gordon shook his head. “No threats. For the most part, the victims say the rapists don’t speak at all. But they take the IDs out of their bags before the leave.”

John sighed. None of it made any sense. “And Crane?”

“You know all I know,” Gordon said “New packages on the street, said to come from a Scarecrow. Psychotic superdrug. No casualties so far, but I can’t imagine it’s going to take long. And no sight of Crane himself, or of any known associates.”

“Do we know where he went after…” John struggled to think about the awful last day of the occupation, about the kids on the bus, about the explosion over the water.

Gordon shook his head. “The kangaroo court was the last anybody saw of him. And Crane’s smart--he could be anywhere, doing anything.”

What does Bane want him for? John wondered. He considered, again, confessing all to Gordon. But then he thought of the soreness he still felt when he walked, of what he’d let Bane do--and he could tell himself that wasn’t the case, that it hadn’t been within his control, but he knew it was. There was no way he could tell Gordon now.

“OK,” John finally said, rising to leave Gordon’s cluttered office. “I’ll go by St. Swinton’s, see if any of the kids know anything else about the drugs. Put my ear to the dealers around there. Someone has to know something.”

Gordon nodded. “There’s the other thing, too,” he said.

John was momentarily confused. “What other thing?”

Gordon look surprised. “Bane. As far as we know, he’s still in Gotham.”

“Oh, right.” John nodded, hoping his lack of surprise didn’t show. “No word about him, either?”

Gordon shook his head, clearly frustrated. “Nobody has seen or heard anything. He’s a ghost.”

John fought back the memory of Bane’s hands on him, of Bane’s cock in him. Some ghost. “I’ll let you know if I find anything,” he promised Gordon, hurrying out of the office before his face betrayed his lie.

The St. Swithin’s kids still knew nothing about the rapes, but two of them did mention the Scarecrow, or at least a few dealers who had his product. John spend the evening running the dealers down and questioning them, but he came up with nothing much, no matter how persuasive he got. They insisted their packages came from the same place they always had, a drug runner called Mickey who had been active in the Narrows forever. John doubted Mickey was hooked up with Crane, but had no better leads, so he started rattling cages on where to find him.

John’s search for Mickey was still fruitless by first light, so he headed home for a few hours of restless sleep. When he woke mid-afternoon, he thought, as he had every day, that whatever was happening or had happened between he and Bane was keeping him from the only possible training that would do him a damn bit of good with the people he was trying to run down. What if he did find Crane? Would he just end up drugged and in an asylum? Or killed by his goons? What if he found the rapists? Certainly anybody willing to do what they’d been doing would have no problem putting down a skinny former cop. John needed more--he needed training, he needed a protective uniform and a mask, he needed to know how to use the shit Bruce left for him. He was spinning his wheels, doing half-assed cop work and helping nobody. The one way he saw to improve that state of affairs was Bane. 

It wouldn’t be the first time a good guy struck a deal with the devil for the the betterment of Gotham, John told himself as he showered, thinking of what Gordon said about Harvey Dent. Maybe whatever Bane wanted with Crane really wouldn't hurt Gotham. Bane’s offer of training had appeared to be sincere, before John’s dick fucked it up. Maybe it was still good. Maybe they could just keep the sex thing out of it completely.

It wasn’t as if he had a whole lot of better options. The city was falling apart faster than ever, and Gordon clearly had no idea where to begin. Batman wasn't coming back, and if John was ever going to be effective in his place, he needed help. He was just going to have to swallow his pride and go back to Bane.


	6. Chapter 6

Neither Bane nor Barsad looked even slightly surprised when John entered the cave. It was just getting dark, and Barsad was cleaning a gun. Bane was sitting on a chair, reading. The scene was almost domestic.  


“Back already, Detective Blake?” Barsad raised an eyebrow, then returned to his task.  


“I’m not a Detective anymore,” John gritted, for what had to be the twentieth time. “Just Blake. Or John.”

Barsad nodded, but didn’t answer.  


Bane rose and crossed the cave, looking at John intently. “Did you bring news of the doctor?” His eyes were keen, but John saw no aggression there.  


“Maybe,” John said. “I need to know what you’re going to do with it first.”  


“That is not your concern,” Bane answered. “As I said, no harm will come to him, or to Gotham.”  


“Honestly, I don’t really give a shit if harm comes to him.”  


Bane’s eyes were curious. “So some may come to harm, then, not-Detective Blake?”  


John scowled. “Crane was trying to destroy Gotham long before you ever got here, and he’s selling poison to kids right now, so I’m not going to be too broken up if something happens to him.”  


Both Bane and Barsad looked at John keenly. “Selling poison?” Barsad asked, putting the gun on the table. “What kind of poison?”  


For a moment, John was quiet, unsure he should tell them any more. It wasn’t as if any of his information was classified, though, so what could it hurt? “Some kind of new street drug,” he replied. “Really weird shit.”  


Bane grabbed John’s arm, his grip tight, but not painfully so. “What does the drug do?”  


John frowned. “What’s it to you?” He pulled his arm away and tried to ignore the heat Bane’s touch brough to his face.  


For a second, John thought Bane would come after him, but instead he took a step back, almost placating. “As I said, no harm will come to anyone. But I must know where to find Doctor Crane, particularly if he has this drug. It may be very dangerous if it gets out.”  


“What the fuck do you care?” John asked. “You were trying to destroy Gotham just a few months ago. Sudden change of heart?”  


Bane rolled his eyes. “My interest is no longer in destroying Gotham,” he said, as if John should find that a perfectly satisfactory answer.  


“You’ll have to forgive me for thinking that’s bullshit.” Every time John allowed himself to think about what Bane did to his city, he felt sick, not only with the memory of it, but with knowing that he himself was now colluding with the terrorist. “Now, is the offer to train me still on the table?”  


Bane nodded slowly. “Yes.” He turned to Barsad. “You will assist us today.”  


Barsad didn’t seem to mind the order. He rose from the table and slipped the gun into a holster. “Yes.”  


John peered at the two men suspiciously as they conferred as to how to begin. He didn’t trust that they were done demanding information about Crane. Not that he knew much more, but perhaps it could be bartered.  


“So,” John asked casually, bending down to stretch a bit before they started beating on him. “Do you happen to know anything about these rapes?”  


Bane thought a moment before he spoke. “Only that there have been many, and your police know nothing.”  


John wanted to argue, but Bane was right, so he didn’t. “They’re really weird,” he said instead. “Not like regular sexual assaults.”  


“How is that?’’  


“Nothing stolen, no unnecessary injuries, no threats.” John shrugged. “It’s like someone is trying to rape...nicely.”  


Bane’s eyes were thoughtful. “That is strange,” he said.  


“If you could find anything out about them,” John said, knowing he had to at least make a shot at it, “I might be able to find out more about Crane.”  


John was fairly sure he heard Barsad snicker from behind him. For his part, Bane moved too quickly for John to be ready, and within a eyelash flutter, John was pinned on the floor, Bane hovering over him. “What makes you think I need to barter with you?” he asked. “Do you really believe I cannot just take what I need?”  


John squirmed, but he knew it would be futile before he began. After a second, he stopped and concentrated on keeping his heart rate steady and his dick soft. “No,” he finally spat. “But I don’t think you want to beat it out of me.”  


Bane’s eyes smiled. John didn’t stop to wonder when he’d started noticing them doing that. “No, perhaps not,” he said. Instead of letting John up, though, he pushed down into him, pressing his body against John’s hard from knees to chest. The intention was unmistakable, and John’s dick twitched excitedly, just as Bane had to have intended.  


John’s face was fully red by the time Bane got up, and he was half-hard. Fucker.  


“We will seek information about the rapes,” Bane said, looking at Barsad. “But it is imperative I know where to find Crane.”  


“What do you know about the drug?” Barsad asked, looking down at where John was still spread out on the ground, trying to regain his cool. “What does it do?”  


Standing, John shrugged. “It’s some combination of painkillers and steroids and street drugs,” he said. “The effects aren’t really clear--so far it’s just making the people who take it really fucking sick. I don’t know if they get high first or what.”  


Bane and Barsad exchanged a glance. John was once again suspicious of their interest. “What’s your deal?” he demanded. “You can’t be thinking you’re going to start dealing drugs?” He didn’t understand a lot about the League of Shadows, but he was fairly certain drug dealing wasn’t in their playbook.  


“No, of course not,” Bane said. “Now, since it’s the first thing you need to be able to do adequately, we’re going to work on breaking a hold.”  


Bane and Barsad worked with John for hours, until he said he had to stop. Both were relentless, but neither were out to actually injure him. That said, they had no problem causing him pain, and by the time they were done, John felt he’d learned little and suffered much. “This is fucking useless,” he yelled, kicking at the cave wall. “Getting my ass kicked by the two of you isn’t going to help me.”  


Barsad shook his head. “You have no patience, John. It will take time. And whining will not make you learn faster, but pain will.”  


“Great,” John groaned, laying on the floor now. “I ought to be a pro soon, then. Jesus.” He tried to stretch his arms and moaned. “What fucking time is it, anyway?” Grabbing his phone and checking the time, he groaned again. It was already very late.  


“You are thinking to go out and look again for the rapists, are you now?” To John’s surprise, Barsad reached a hand down to help him stand.  


“Yes.” There was no point in denying it.  


“You put yourself in danger unnecessarily.” The words were matter-of-fact. “You are aware that you are not equipped for what you may find.”  


John scowled. “More than aware,” he gritted from between his teeth. “Not a lot of other options.”  


“Patience,” Barsad said, repeating his earlier words. “Wait until you are ready.”  


John scowled harder. “And the women getting raped right now? Should they just be patient?”  


Barsad frowned back, his face clearly considering. “We will make a trade.” He glanced at Bane, who nodded. “I will look for your rapists. You will assist Bane in finding Crane.”  


So they were back to that. John was quiet a moment. “I go with you when you see Crane,” he said, finally, turning toward Bane. “I want to know what you want with him.”  


Bane and Barsad exchanged another glance. Neither looked pleased. “First, we find Crane,” Bane said.  


John didn’t miss how his demand was bypassed, but in truth he wasn’t going to get a better deal. He was nowhere with the rapists, the GCPD were nowhere with the rapists, and it was pretty clear he wasn’t ready to be Batman. Was whatever Bane wanted to do with Crane worse than the rapes? If it was, John could address that next. “OK,” he said finally, his lips pursed to show his agreement wasn’t without concerns. “But you start now,” he pointed at Barsad. “I need to talk to the kids again before I can get any further on Crane, and that has to wait until tomorrow.”  


Barsad didn’t respond, just began to fill his vest with ammunition and check his guns. Within no more than a minute, he had left the cave.  


Suddenly alone with Bane, John’s mind focused on mechanical breathing sound. “Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on with Crane?” John asked, not turning to look at Bane.  


John heard Bane take a few steps and end up just behind him. He must have been making noise on purpose. “Perhaps in time,” Bane said, his voice low. If he’d breathed normally, John would have felt his breath on his neck.  


“And now?” John asked, his voice softer than he intended. He knew, even as he asked, that he was about to make a mistake he’d feel terrible about later. He just couldn’t force himself to care. He’d likely already entered into a pact with the devil today, what did it matter?  


“Now you make a decision,” Bane said. One hand caught John’s hip hard, pulling him in.  


“You know I can’t fight you,” John said, already leaning back into Bane’s body.  


Bane suddenly let go and stepped back, forcing John to take an unsteady step to right himself. “There is nothing to fight,” Bane said. “Except yourself.”  


John bristled and fought to keep himself under control. “So you’re just going to let me leave?”  


Bane made an exaggerated gesture toward the exit. John concentrated on his feet, willing them to move. They didn’t.  


Bane laughed that mechanical laugh, and John hated him as much as he ever had. He hated himself for even thinking it, but his body yearned for Bane to do as he had before. To be taken, to be used, to be absolved of responsibility for any of it.  


“You will never fight well if you do not listen to what your body says to you,” Bane mused, still standing several steps away. “Or if your opponent can read it so clearly.”  


When John turned and ran at Bane, it was with even less finesse than in his fight training. He was tired and his body hurt and he was angry--furious--that Bane knew so well what he desired and was using it to mock him. It wasn’t clear what John expected to accomplish with this attack, but could no longer keep still.  


Unsurprisingly, Bane instantly turned John’s power back against him, doing no more than feigning slightly to one side and sticking out a foot. John landed on his back on the cave floor, hard, the wind knocked out of him. Before he had any hope of recovery, Bane was on top of him, his body pressing in hard, his erection obvious. Whatever it was that they were playing at, John was not the only one whose body was interested. He’d have said as much, if he had the breath.  


John made no futile attempt to push Bane off him. Instead, he ground up against Bane’s weight. He made no conscious choice to stop thinking, stop prematurely regretting what he was going to do, but as soon as Bane landed on him, it happened. He thought of nothing but Bane’s body and his own, everything else disappearing.  


For a moment, they just stared and ground against one another, neither of their bodies giving any ground. When John finally caught his breath, he lowered his hips slightly and spoke. “Will you take your clothes off?” Before, in the alley, one of the only thing that could have made it any hotter would have be seeing Bane’s body.  


Bane’s eyes looked surprised. “Why?”  


“Because I want to see you.” If they were doing this, John figured, there was no point in pretending he wasn’t into it.  


Still looking a bit puzzled, Bane at up, keeping John pinned with his thighs. He stripped his top half efficiently, removing his vest first. John watched with interest as he unfastened various straps, wondering what the purpose of the garment actually was. Once Bane pulled it off, though, and followed by tugging his long-sleeved shirt over his head, John’s brain went back offline.  


He knew Bane was big, obviously. And he expected to find defined muscles under his clothes. But what he saw was nothing like he’d imagined. The muscles were bigger and more defined, certainly, but beyond that, there were scars crossing nearly every part of Bane’s skin. Most of them looked old, but deep. John reached up and ran a finger across a long slash.  


Bane didn’t pull away while John was touching him. As soon as John’s finger had completed the path, though, he stood, still straddling John’s body. “You will undress as well,” he said.  


John noted the order, but didn’t fight it. Instead, he kept his eyes on Bane as he pulled his t-shirt over his head. When Bane said nothing more, but continued staring at him, he pulled his body up to standing and unfastened his jeans. Maintaining eye contact, he pulled them and his underwear off all together.  


John would have expected standing naked in front of Bane to be both more frightening and more arousing than it was. He was at half-mast, unsure, but not scared. For a moment, looking at Bane’s scarred chest, he’d been reminded that the man in front of him was, after all, only human. He could be hurt.  


The adrenaline surged back immediately when Bane reached out to John’s shoulder and shoved him roughly back down onto his knees. With his face level with the outline of Bane’s very clear erection, the gesture was unmistakable.  


“What happened to not forcing me?” John asked, constitutionally unable to keep his snark inside.  


Bane pulled his hand away from John’s shoulder. “I am forcing nothing.” Casually, he unfastened his trousers and moved them down his thighs.  


John had known Bane had a huge cock--he was still feeling just how big it was. That said, seeing it was a horse of a different color. It was expectedly long, but almost ridiculously wide, hard and red, the foreskin folding back. John’s mouth fell open.  


“Did you want to leave, not-Detective?”  


Jesus. Bane was teasing him. “No,” John finally hissed, moving forward on his knees.  


“Good.” Bane’s odd voice sounded pleased, almost fond, and his hands reached down again, one on John’s shoulder, the other on his head.  


It was probably not the best blowjob John had ever given. He hadn’t done it in a while, and he wasn’t at all sure how to handle a dick this size. But he gave it his best shot, sucking hard and wet, applying more pressure when Bane’s hands told him too, and taking in as much as he could. John grabbed onto Bane’s thighs to steady himself and was stunned by the hard lines of muscle. They were thick as tree trunks, and his already hard cock twitched with the thought of being between them again  


Eventually, Bane pushed John away, his hands so hard that John sprawled backward. “What the fuck?” John panted. Bane was still rock hard, it wasn’t like he hadn’t been enjoying it.  


“Get on your knees,” Bane growled. His eyes, which hadn’t seemed over-interested in John’s body when he took his clothes off, were hungry now.  


For a single moment, John considered refusing. The pain after the last time hadn’t been insignificant. But God, he wanted to. “Do you have lube and condoms?” he asked, already rolling over to take the position Bane ordered.  


Bane reached into the pocket of his fatigue trousers and both appeared. Goddammit, John though blearily, he was expecting this. He knows I can’t turn him down. He didn’t waste much time on the worry, though, as Bane’s big finger was already sliding into him, all at once, without preamble.  


John bucked against Bane’s hand, then pulled himself forward on the floor, moving away from the overstimulation. Bane said nothing, just reached forward and grabbed John’s hip, forcing him still. The preparation was just as rough as it had been in the alley, John barely comfortable with one finger before Bane was using three. John yelled out, realizing that unless Barsad came back early, there was nobody to hear him.  


Bane didn’t speak as he worked John open, and John couldn’t twist his body around enough to see him. He concentrated instead on the warring sensations, the pain and pleasure, and the way his skin prickled around him, wary and anxious and so turned on that none of it mattered in the least.  


As before, Bane decided John was ready far before he actually was, removing his fingers and quickly pulling on the condom. As Bane pushed inside him, John focused completely on relaxing and allowing the intrusion, but it was simply not a case of mind over matter. Bane was huge, John was tight, and it hurt so badly that John’s screams echoed against the cave walls.  


It hurt, and then it didn’t. Or it didn’t enough to matter. In the space between one blessedly shallow stroke and the next, John’s body relaxed and his nerve endings all lit up like a celebration. His screams became first gasps and then moans as Bane rocked in and out of him, pushing him hard into the floor and going in further with each thrust. He found John’s prostate easily, and hit it over and over once he did.  


“Touch yourself,” Bane ordered as his thrusts deepened.  


John did as he was told immediately, his cock practically jumping into his hand. From there, it was fast, Bane speeding up and forcing in harder, and John already so overcome with sensation that the new pain barely registered. He didn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed when he yelled as he came, his come coating his hand and staining the cave floor.  


Bane followed quickly this time, far more quickly than he had in the alley, and John heard him gasp as his hips began to stutter. His last strokes hurt again, and John swore as Bane finished.  


Once Bane pulled out, John sprawled on his stomach on the cave floor, boneless and unbothered by the dust and come he was lying in. Bane pulled his trousers up before sitting next to him, breathing hard. He surprised John by speaking. “Tomorrow, you will find out what you can about Crane, then return here by nightfall. Barsad will tell you what he has learned of the rapists.”  


Coming down from the high of the sex and knowing the pit of guilt he was about to descend into, John wasn’t happy with the order. But he knew before he even said anything that he would do as he was told. He didn’t really have many other options.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come visit me on [Tumblr](https://coffeewithconsequences.tumblr.com/) or read the rest of my fic here at [Archive of Our Own](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeWithConsequences/works)!


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